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Monday, December 3, 2012

JES-activities in Geneva. Switzerland.

In our petition number 216, handed to His Excellency Yoshihiko Noda we reminded Japan that the Human Rights Council of the United Nations, A/HRC/WG.6/14/L.12, condemns Japan's war time record on human rights, in particular sexual slavery and other atrocities committed by Japanese military. The education curricula disguise the facts and the reference that all issues are legally settled under the various treaties does notdismiss Japan from its moral obligations.
Japan has the time up to March 2013 to come forward with suggestions which might bridge the gap between the comments made diplomatically by the UN delegates and the initial responses by the Japanese delegation.

In June 2012 the twentieth session of the Human Rights Council was held in Geneva.
Because our Foundation JES the NGO, a non-governmental Organization in consultative status (Roster) with ECOSOC.,we have the right to present 'Written Statements' to the United Nations in Geneva.
With these written statements the affiliated countries are made aware, of the Human Rights violations of Japan.

This year the Foundations statement was about the young boys who were abducted by the Japanese military from their mother's at the young age of 10 and were taken to a separate concentration camp where they were used for slave labor and where they had to take care of themselves.

Our member of the board, with international relations, Brigitte van Halder, was in Geneva and handed out the statement to the UN. These statements were handed to the Chinese and Korean delegation, who like us strive for recognition from Japan for their crimes during the Japanese occupation of Asia. They were very interested.Here follows the text from our statement.

Human Rights Council
20th Session
Economic and Social Council
June 2012

Written statement by the Foundation of Japanese Honorary Debts, a non-governmental organization in consultative status (Roster) with ECOSOC.

Title: Japan must accept its responsibilities in violating the Human Rights of young boys in concentration camps in the Dutch East Indies.

The Foundation of Japanese Honorary Debts in The Netherlands represents Dutch ex prisoners of war, civilian internees (men, women and children) and those Dutch who were left outside the Japanese concentration camps during World War Two, now 67 years ago. About 100.000 of the 300.000 Dutch who lived in the Dutch East Indies during that period are registered with the Foundation.

One group that the foundation represents is the group of the so-called 'Comfort Women' young girls and women, sexually abused by the Japanese military and their agents. Many of them have died over the years, but those who are still alive are suffering from a trauma that will never go away.

In this statement however the Foundation wants to draw your attention to another group of highly traumatized victims.

One of the cruelest measures by the Japanese military during the occupation of the Dutch East Indies was the abduction of Dutch boys as young as 10 years old into separate concentration camps. They were separated from their mothers and locked up. They had to find their own way under the most difficult circumstances. Against all war conventions they were put to work under harsh and often sordid conditions. In fact the Japanese military kidnapped these children and abused them. They were starved, lacked normal medical guidance and left without any medicine. Medicine provided for by the Red Cross was used by the Japanese military for their own use!

The abducted Dutch boys were forcibly taken from their mothers, who protested vehemently, but to no avail. Many of the boys died; those who returned lost their youth and had difficulties in adjusting to normal life.For those boys, if still alive they would be well into their eighties now, the time has gone. Their experience is not forgotten and remains cruel to this day.

The physical and psychological damage to all the individual victims of the Japanese occupation was considerable and still, after 67 years, continues to haunt the surviving victims.

The horrors inside and outside the Japanese concentration camps in the Dutch East Indies during World War Two are engraved in their memories. The nights are the most terrifying moments. The older one gets, the more the memory is focused on these moments one wants to forget.

The Foundation of Japanese Honorary debts, together with its sister organizations in China, Korea and other East Asian countries occupied by the Japanese military during World War Two requests, once again, the help of the Human Rights Council to ensure that after 67 years Japan recognizes its past and rectifies its violation of human rights during World War Two by acknowledging the facts and subsequently settling the damage done to victims.

The Heiho flogged with well aimed lashes
Ten year old boys behind an army truck
By incomprehensible decree they were declared a man- and men.
Don't belong with their mothers anymore.
He was in line with in his one hand his teddy bear.
Clenched around the one paw left.

In the other hand a bag with in it
The find bit of sugar and some malaria pills,
His mother put in at last
He forced back his tears
After all, he was a man now.
His mother prayed and intensely hoped
To once see him again.
At his birth she had
thought of such a nice name for him
She...she died of malnutrition and malaria.
Lacked the pills that saved his life.

He ended up in a Dutch contract boarding house
Cold, wet, uncomfortable and not so nice either
The hunger winter was more important in conversations.
Than his story of his-cruel-departure.
About good and evil he always thought differently
All his relations broke down
Booze and drugs sometimes helped,
For a moment avoiding reality.
His career failed over and over
The only thing he missed, was his old one armed, soft teddy bear.

written by; Govert Huyser.

Fragments, memories of a camp boy.

General b.d. GL.J.Huyser (Soerabaya 1931) stayed during the war in the Japanese internment camps 'DARMO' in Soerabya 'Karangpanas' in Semarang and in the boys camp 'Bangkong' in Semarang.